This invention relates to a road marker which can be placed temporarily upon a road for directing traffic or placed upon the ground for marking off areas. This road marker may be manually assembled for use as a barrier or guide or, alternatively, may be folded flat for transportation or storage.
Road markers are conventionally used along roads and other geographic areas for visually marking the areas. For example, in construction zones along a road, markers are positioned for visually guiding vehicle drivers for passage around marked-off areas. Other examples are the placement of markers at geographical areas for guiding the parking of vehicles or for temporarily blocking off areas to vehicles or people.
One conventional road marker comprises a barrel which may be formed of a plastic material. Such barrels are typically brightly colored so that they are readily visible. A large number of such barrels may be aligned on a highway to mark off of a lane of highway, that is, to guide vehicles around the marked off lane or other portion of the highway during construction work. In addition, it is common to mount upon the upper ends of the barrels battery operated lights or similar attention getting devices.
Another form of commonly used marker comprises cone shaped, rubber-like plastic devices. These may be aligned in spaced apart relationship along a road or other geographic area to mark off a section that is temporarily off limits to vehicles or pedestrians or to guide traffic.
Other types of road markers, such as so-called horses or barricades made of inverted, spaced apart V-shaped ends between which an elongated board is positioned, are used to block off an area, as for example, a parade route or other gathering, which is temporarily off limits to the public.
Conventional road markers or barriers are bulky requiring considerable space for storage and transportation, and relatively expensive. Thus, large numbers of the commonly used large barrels and cones are relatively difficult to transport to use sites. Ordinary metal barrels that are also commonly used require considerable space on delivery trucks. Barrels and cones molded out of plastic are tapered to telescopically fit within one another other. Still the amount of space required on a truck to carry a large number of these barrels is substantial. Thus, the transportation of a large number of such plastic barrels or cones, as for example, to a road construction project, requires a number of truck loads and a considerable amount of manual labor for transporting the barrels.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide road markers or barriers which may be easily folded to minimize their bulk during transportation and storage, but which may be manually assembled into a bulky use condition without tools and with minimal labor. Since road markers are typically used in large numbers, it is important to have barriers that are of minimal expense and, in addition, which may be easily repaired when damaged, such as upon being hit by a vehicle, to reduce the cost of such markers.